Real Money

The Night Watch: Alloy Gains Ground, West Marine Dives

Volume is again light. Tech stocks stay flat.

After-hours traders again had little news to focus on Wednesday, and as a result, widely held industrial and technology shares were occupying most of the spots on the Instinet volume leader board.

One exception was Farmer Mac ( AGM). The stock was the most active issue, but it was unchanged from the 4 p.m. EDT close at $25.60. During regular trading, Farmer Mac lost almost 15%. Last week, the company asked the New York Stock Exchange to investigate trading in its stock, which Farmer Mac believes has been under siege of late by short-sellers.

Overall, volume was on the light side. In the first hour of extra trading, about 1.5 million shares changed hands among the 20 most active stocks on the Instinet platform.

Cisco ( CSCO) was up 0.1% to $15.67, and Intel ( INTC) was unchanged at $27.28. The Nasdaq 100 Unit Trust ( QQQ) was flat at $30.29.

Among the few companies with news, Alloy ( ALOY), a direct marketing company that focuses its efforts on young people, was up 3.4% to $13.54. After the close, the company said it turned a profit in the latest first quarter and beat analysts' estimates. West Marine ( WMAR), however, dropped 12% to $14.90 after the boating products seller said same-store sales fell 1.9% in May.